Two Steps to Fight Energy Loss as We Age

The other day I was walking down the road, it was a bright and sunny day, and in the reflection of the shop windows I saw this middle-aged man walking towards the reflection.

I realised that man in the reflection was me, but hang on I don’t see myself as the middle-aged man in the reflection. I played sport all my life and even now I exercise most days. That was definitely not me. Except it was.

What a rude awakening! I still see myself as the twenty something year old guy that can do most things physically, yes sure, I do them a little slower and not with the gusto I used to, but I still get them done.

My lifestyle has definitely taken its toll, the office hours of the career, the business lunches, the behind the laptop ‘hunch and munch’ as another deadline looms.

I get out of the office each day and walk during my lunch break, a good 40-minute walk, but I have the mobile phone hunch as I get sucked into the virtual world of ‘Neverland.’

Whether we like to face facts, and we often don’t like to face facts but the cold hard and bitter, brutal truth is that we all are ageing and we are getting slower and weaker, that’s just fact, and the slow decline to dust is something we hate to think about but age robs us of our mobility strength and flexibility and our life force, our energy.

This got me thinking. How can I get that unenergetic, middle-aged man in the reflection to slow the energy and life force decline?

I got to reading up on this and it turns out that we have energy drivers in our cells. There are little dynamos that are within every cell of our body. They are called mitochondria and if we can get these little babies firing on all cylinders, we may just be able to slow the entry of the old self.

As usual, as I am prone to do, I obsessed about these little energy producing and storage houses. How do I turbo boost the dynamos within my cells and get them firing?

I came across many methods, but two that are relatively simple and easy enough to implement for all of us are:

Feed them what they need and then activate them to enhance their performance.

Feeding them; Well, what do they need?

It turns out these little powerhouses burn best and brightest on Vitamin B complex.

I believe our bodies are designed to eat food, and that through food we get the best bioavailability of any nutrients, so the best food sources of vitamin B would be the way to go.

Some of the best food sources for Vitamin B would be fish like tuna and mackerel, red meat, chicken, also dark green vegetables like spinach and kale.

Whole grains and cereals, and also beans, chickpeas, seeds and nuts too.

Milk, cheese and eggs are also good sources of vitamin B.

Fruits like citrus fruits and banana and watermelon, also yeasts and nutritional yeasts.

Remember to ensure that your body absorbs what you are eating, make sure that your gut microbiome is fully functional, so probiotics and pre-biotics are a good idea.

Okay, now that we have the nutrients that we require, what about activating the life force energy we require?

1 minute of blasting to maximum exertion with vigor to a fountain of youth.

Well, apparently one of the best ways to do this is through interval training and if you are trying to activate your mitochondria, it is as simple as 30 seconds, 3 to 5 minute break and then 30 seconds.

Now, in the thirty seconds activity, you need to blast it to max exertion for those thirty seconds, and then rest 3 to 5 minutes, then blast it again. Do this three times a week.

Also, what I have read is that resistance training is good too. You can use weights, or our own body weight. Two of the best if you want to keep it simple would be push ups and squats with or without weights.

Just be careful if you use weights, for joints and back.

I hope you found this article helpful and interesting.